How long did the Palizada fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 22 April 2019 to 17 May 2019 (26 days). The perimeter dates it from 28 April 2019 to 10 May 2019.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,060 hectares (30.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Palizada (3,075 ha, 1.4 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 42.2 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, class Very high.

Where does this data come from?

From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Mexico (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

MX · Mexico · 2019-04-22 → 2019-05-17

Palizada fire, 22 April 2019 Palizada

Out · last detection 17 May 2019, 07:29 UTC

The fire started on 22 April 2019 in Palizada, Mexico, and satellites saw it burning for 26 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,060 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 35th largest in Campeche since 2016 (of 138 with a page). Number 136 in Mexico in 2019, of 364.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Palizada · 2016 Palizada · 2017 Palizada · 2023 Palizada · 2023

Burnt area: 3,060ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 26days; 22 Apr 2019 – 17 May 2019
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 22 Apr; 2019
Heat detections: 161; in a single hotspot: 90 MW
Danger at start: 30; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 60MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Apr17 May

Play back 17 May 2019

How it evolved, day by day

22 Apr 26 Apr 1 May 5 May 9 May 15 May

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

42°high

52km/h · peak gust

33%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 27 May.

This area had burned before

57% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,407 ha in 2016, 707 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,745 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 1.9% of the area of London (31 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Palizada 30,798 inhabitants where it started

3,075 ha reached on 22 Apr

1.4 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020

Built-up area< 0.1 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

The weather day by day

ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day	High	Min. humidity	Peak gust	Rain	Danger (FWI)
22 Apr	36.5 °C	33 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
23 Apr	37.1 °C	38 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
24 Apr	38.0 °C	33 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
25 Apr	37.3 °C	44 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
26 Apr	33.1 °C	55 %	40 km/h	0.1 mm	High 24
27 Apr	31.9 °C	60 %	28 km/h	0.9 mm	Moderate 13
28 Apr	36.0 °C	42 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
29 Apr	37.7 °C	35 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
30 Apr	36.7 °C	38 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
1 May	38.4 °C	37 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
2 May	37.7 °C	37 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
3 May	38.0 °C	35 %	42 km/h	0.1 mm	High 35
4 May	39.6 °C	39 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
5 May	38.0 °C	43 %	37 km/h	2.1 mm	Moderate 21
6 May	38.4 °C	39 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
7 May	39.3 °C	38 %	36 km/h	0.6 mm	High 32
8 May	41.4 °C	35 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
9 May	42.2 °C	36 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
10 May	40.5 °C	37 %	40 km/h	0.3 mm	Very high 39
11 May	37.9 °C	49 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
12 May	39.1 °C	41 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
13 May	39.8 °C	40 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
14 May	38.5 °C	37 %	35 km/h	0.1 mm	High 34
15 May	37.3 °C	46 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
16 May	37.4 °C	48 %	26 km/h	0.4 mm	High 28
17 May	37.2 °C	45 %	33 km/h	2.6 mm	Moderate 14
18 May after	40.3 °C	36 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
19 May after	39.7 °C	38 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
20 May after	38.8 °C	40 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
21 May after	40.7 °C	32 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
22 May after	39.8 °C	32 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
23 May after	38.9 °C	40 %	52 km/h	0.5 mm	Very high 46
24 May after	37.7 °C	40 %	51 km/h	0.2 mm	Very high 44
25 May after	36.8 °C	42 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
26 May after	36.7 °C	40 %	40 km/h	0.2 mm	Very high 39
27 May after	37.2 °C	35 %	36 km/h	1.2 mm	High 32

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

↔

Before · 15 Apr 2019

After · 24 May 2019

Before After

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 161Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.

⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.

Date and time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Mexico ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Palizada fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 22 April 2019 to 17 May 2019 (26 days). The perimeter dates it from 28 April 2019 to 10 May 2019.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,060 hectares (30.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Palizada (3,075 ha, 1.4 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 42.2 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?: From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Mexico (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

Where to verify it

A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.

Emergency number: 911 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

CONAFOR · Comisión Nacional Forestal ↗
CENAPRED ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.

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What really happened?

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We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 911.

How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 28 April 2019 to 10 May 2019. 161 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
We have not matched this page with any official record.
Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

Where this data comes from

The perimeter comes from the Copernicus Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which rebuilds it from MODIS and VIIRS heat detections and publishes it under CC BY 4.0. It is not measured on imagery as in Europe, so it is an estimate. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ from each country’s official figure.

Where it burned